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Global Food Crisis

This photograph I saw on the BBC website, credited only to AP. The caption reads; An Iraqi army soldier looks on as a woman picks up rice at a checkpoint in Sadr City, Baghdad. The Shia suburb is suffering food shortages as troops clash with the Mehdi Army militia.

I've been hearing a lot recently about the global food crisis, a complex debate with so many problems and solutions it would take many paragraphs to even touch upon the situation. However, the photograph above I find very interesting. I can't be sure of the narrative but it seems to be that the woman is troubled and is desperately attempting to scrape up rice spilled on the road. The Jeep, the checkpoint and the soldier in the background add to the feeling that this is a woman suffering daily from the fallout of a war being waged around her. I find it particularly disturbing that the soldier is lounging nonchalantly on the Jeep with a broad smile on his face. What is he smiling at - the woman scrabbling for rice on her hands and knees, the photographer who is likely sprawled on the ground with her? I don't know. But I don't like it.